Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies | ||
JANUARY 24.
This was a day of incessant occupation. I rose at six o'clock and went down to the Bay to settle some business; on return I visited the hospital while breakfast was being got ready; and as soon as it was over, I went down to the negro-houses to
They were succeeded by no less a personage than Venus her-self-a poor little, sickly, timid soul, who had purchased her freedom from my father by substituting in her place a fine stout wench, who, being Venus's locum tenens , was, by courtesy, called Venus too, though her right name was "Big Joan;" but, by some neglect of the then attorney, Venus had never received any title, and she now came to beg " massa so good as give paper" otherwise she was still, to all intents and purposes, my slave, and I might still have compelled her to work, although, at the same time, her substitute was on the estate. Of course I promised the paper required, and engaged to act the part of a second Vulcan by releasing Venus from my chains : but the
Venus had scarcely evacuated the premises when her place was occupied by the minister of Savannah la Mar, with proposals for instructing the negroes in religion ; and the minister, in his turn, was replaced by one of the Sunday-night thieves, who had been caught while in the actual possession of one of my sheep and a great turkey-cock ; and, to make the matter worse, he depredator's name was Hercules! The demi-god had nothing to say in his excuse: he had just received a large allowance of beef :-therefore, hunger had no share in his transgression ; and the committing the offence during the very time that I was giving the negroes a festival, rendered his ingratitude the more flagrant.
I perfectly well understood that the man was sent to me by my agent, in order to show the absolute necessity of sometimes employing the cart-whip, and to see whether I would suffer the fellow to escape unpunished. But, as this was the first offender who had been brought before me, I took that for a pretext to absolve him: so I lectured him for half an hour with great severity, swore that on the very next offence I would order him to be sold; and that, if he would not do his fair proportion of work without being lashed, he should be sent to work somewhere else; for I would suffer no such worthless fellows on my estate and would not be at the expense of a cart-whip to correct him. Hercules promised most earnestly to behave better in future, and was suffered to depart: but I am told that no good can be, expected of him; that he is perpetually running away; and that he had been absent for five weeks together before my arrival
Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies | ||